HMS addresses senior center concerns

Hidalgo Medical Services leadership opened themselves up to questions and critique at a public meeting Wednesday to explain planned changes at Grant County’s senior centers, of which the health care nonprofit will assume management this summer.

The biggest changes, and the biggest concerns for the meeting’s attendees, were HMS’s plans to move the Gila and Mimbres Senior Centers to catered-only while closing the Hurley Senior Center — until recently catered-only — altogether. A center being catered-only means meals will be served there, but they won’t be cooked on-premises. Meals for the catered-only sites will be prepared at either the Silver City or Santa Clara Senior Center and shipped.

Members of the audience, especially those who are actually employees at the senior centers, said that shipping pre-cooked food will affect its quality and temperature.

“Will it really save anything to transport meals the extra 60 miles to Gila?” asked Carol Taylor, manager and cook at the Gila Center. “My concern is the quality of food is going to go down. If you transport a cooked can of peas from Silver to Gila, you’re going to have to reheat it on the stovetop and you will be serving pea mush. This is going to create low morale for the people who go out there — for the people who work there, too.”

HMS Family Support Services Director Edith Lee, charged with managing the organization’s expansion into the senior centers, said the catered model is common all over the state.

“A lot of sites use it because it is necessary to afford it,” Lee said. “We are going to do our best to minimize issues like meals not being warm. The AAA [New Mexico Area Agency on Aging] will be providing additional support moving forward. The first week of the transition, they will be on-site to make sure there aren’t any problems.”

Chris DeBolt, the Grant County representative to the agency, was concerned that the centers would run into not only quality issues, but also regulatory issues.

“Food temperature is huge,” she said. “I have talked to some people who have been here a long time. They are concerned. Regulatory issues — complying with serving and holding temperatures — can become an issue.”

HMS CEO Dan Otero said it was the regulations that would keep the problem from occurring.

“We have regulations for all of this and we have to meet them,” he said. “Quality is job one for us. If we are not reaching those standards, we will adapt. If the transport model is not meeting that quality, we’re going to have to come back to the drawing board.”

Otero said they are gathering heated trays that will help keep the food up to the appropriate temperatures during travel.

For Hurley residents, no food will travel at all. Instead, HMS will continue transporting seniors from Hurley to Santa Clara for meals and activities.

As for morale, Lee said some impact is unavoidable simply because humans are involved.

“So, I am also a mental health therapist,” she said. “Something I know for a fact is change is not easy, even if the change is good and for a reason. Sometimes we like what’s familiar, even if it’s not working. There will be some uncomfortable ‘growing pains’ in the beginning. We expect that.”

But, Otero said, HMS plans to work closely with the people on the ground at the senior centers to make sure everyone is as satisfied as possible.

These changes were not arbitrary, according to HMS, but a matter of dollars and cents.

The big reason is that the state Legislature — faced with creating a budget from dried up revenue streams — cut 5.5 percent from the funding for senior centers around the state. Lee, charged with managing the organization’s expansion into the senior centers, said HMS got just $581,000 this year to run all of the county’s senior centers. The state government was the source of $232,000 of that. Another $189,000 came from the federal government. Grant County fronted $50,000. The town of Silver City and village of Santa Clara pay most of the rest.

“The programs had to quickly adjust to those budget cuts,” Lee said. “One requirement with AAA is you have to function within the budget they provide, unless you can supplement it with outside sources. That 5.5 percent cut is still a reality, still impacting the budget. They’re thinking about more cuts as well. So, we went into this operating on a very lean level.”

The big changes — closing Hurley and dialing back Gila and Mimbres — are projected to save between $10,000 and $12,000 for each site. Those cuts brought the operations within the state’s budget.

Otero said that being operated by a nonprofit could end up benefiting the senior centers, because they can seek outside funding. So, the changes might be temporary.

“We have a partner, the Southwest New Mexico Center for Health Innovation, who are already working to find additional grant funding to help senior centers,” Otero said.

Just because there is a reason doesn’t mean anyone is happy with the changes. One woman who must now travel from Hurley to Santa Clara said the time away from home is a big problem.

“We are gone from our houses now for three and a half hours,” she said. “We leave at 9 a.m. and aren’t back until after noon. We’re seniors. Some of us have problems.”

Lee said she would look into adjusting the trip’s route, but that doesn’t change the plans for closing the Hurley site.

Personnel layoffs were another concern for many in the audience on Wednesday. Lee, though, said there would be none per se.

“If you look at the list, we actually haven’t reduced the number of positions,” she said.

There are, in fact, two new jobs for transporters from Silver City to Gila and Santa Clara to Mimbres. But, cooks won’t be needed in Gila or Mimbres, and HMS will be taking over janitorial services to save money for the centers.

Lee said volunteers will have an expanded role in the senior centers as well.

The new hours for the senior centers will be 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day in Silver City and Santa Clara, and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Gila and Mimbres.